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1998 Governor · NE

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 1998-10-28 (6 days before the election) · 807 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 39% · Republican 54%

R+15.0

The certified result

Democrat 45.98% · Republican 53.91%

R+7.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 39 − 54 = -15.00
  2. Actual margin = 45.976 − 53.905 = -7.929
  3. Signed miss = -15.00 − (-7.929) = -7.071
  4. Absolute miss = |-7.071| = 7.071

The poll overstated the Republican by 7.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54348, race ID 1451 (538 database).